-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Ebola , ISIS and Ferguson grabbed the headlines in 2014 , but there is another huge story that should not be overlooked . Historians could look back on this year as the beginning of feminism 's third wave .

The year was momentous for feminism . For the first time , rape victims and their supporters emerged from the shadows in significant numbers and started naming names -- to significant effect . Women , their voices amplified by social media and with the support of a small but growing cohort of men , have been exposing and shaming venerable American institutions such as the NFL , Ivy League and non-Ivy League colleges , and the entertainment icon Bill Cosby .

First wave feminists won the right to vote . The second wave got us the right to work . But even with those advances , women have remained fundamentally restricted by the threat and terrible secret of sexual assault .

This year , emboldened and connected by social media , college women formed a powerful grassroots movement that led to universities such as Harvard being publicly named and shamed for not addressing women 's rape reports . They brought the issue of campus sexual assault into the White House , where Barack Obama became the first President to use the words `` sexual violence . '' The Department of Education released a list of universities under investigation for mishandling sexual violence cases , often letting even repeat predators off with barely a slap on the wrist .

These young women had been silent until social media enabled them to come together , even though thousands of miles apart , share debilitating secrets and then act with the confidence that safety in numbers provided .

Last week 's back-pedaling on the Rolling Stone article about an alleged gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity house is an unfortunate example of reporting gone wrong . But it is also a teachable moment about why feminism 's third wave is so important : We must make it easier for more women to put their names and faces on their accusations and eradicate the stigma and fear that silences victims . Only when these stories come fully out of the shadows can we assess their validity and see justice done .

Cosby 's accusers , with their remarkably similar stories of being drugged and assaulted , were also `` heard '' for the first time in 2014 , even though many had individually come forward in the pages of national media years ago . Barbara Bowman , a Phoenix artist and mother who was one of Cosby 's early accusers , told me that being a rape victim `` is the most shameful , scary , intimidating , filthy place to live . It is a place of darkness and fear . ''

The bravery of the Cosby accusers and the college women alone is not the only encouraging sign .

The public revelations of domestic violence rocking the National Football League , amplified by an elevator video of Ray Rice cold-cocking his fiancee , are another . The NFL dropped the ball on punishing Rice but now is being shamed into paying attention to behavior that it used to ignore and enable .

Men are starting to get it . In an article after the latest Cosby scandal , the essayist Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote that he regretted not having paid attention to the women in 2008 , when he penned a seminal piece on Cosby .

`` I have never been raped , '' Coates wrote . `` But I have , several times as a child , been punched/stomped/kicked / bum-rushed while walking home from school , and thus lost my body . The worst part for me was not the experience , but the humiliation of being unable to protect my body , which is all I am , from predators . ''

Every alleged image or videotape of a rape and beating that goes viral , every woman coming forward with a Cosby story and every college freshman reporting her rapist form a collective alarm bell waking up the silent majority of Americans who would never call themselves `` feminist '' and yet who abhor sexual violence against women .

Rape culture holds all women down , whether soldiers or CEOs or college freshmen or high school girls who drank too much out in blue-collar Ohio or backcountry Oklahoma .

My generation of women , who came of age in the 1980s , did not really carry forward the banner of feminism . We took advantage of the gains of the 1970s , getting good jobs and having children and then got so busy having it all that we had no time left over . And it was terribly important to fit in , to be one of the guys , to fly under the radar as women . The last thing we wanted was to be labeled as victims , to wear the humiliation of being prey .

I 'm in awe of the young women on campuses who have stood up and made it OK to tell the world what happened to them , in their dark places , in the dark of night . Thanks to their courage , more and more Americans are understanding every day that the shame of sexual assault is a burden that belongs on the predators , not the prey .

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Nina Burleigh : 2014 marked start of feminism 's third wave -- rape victims speaking out

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She says social media , support of men , including President , brought campus rape to fore

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She says Cosby , NFL , UVA cases show need to erase stigma of women naming attacker

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Burleigh : Women in '80s sat out feminism ; new wave emboldened to shame predators